August 2021
By The Institute for Law and Philanthropy, Tel Aviv University & O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, IUPUI
It is a well acknowledged fact that the Israeli nonprofit sector raises more than half of its philanthropic funding from abroad.
Thus, the scope of giving from US to Israel is a topic of constant curiosity.
This report sheds light on two basic themes:
- Who gives? And how much?
- In the era of detailed reporting and digital data – transparency is vague, and thorough manual inquiry is still necessary.
Based on their administrative reporting to the IRS we identified 1,179 funding organizations giving to Israeli nonprofits (grantees) a total of $1.8 billion in 5,597 separate grants (for year 2015). The study categorizes the funding organizations into four categories: ‘Friends of’, ‘Centralized’, ‘Family Foundation’, and ‘Other’ and also looks into selected causes/missions.
Scholars and practitioners in this field hold a common assumption that American Jewish philanthropies have transferred approximately $2 billion to Israeli grantees annually since at least 2007. Our findings lead us to suggest that this assumption is an over-estimation.
We hope you have an interesting read and look forward to your comments and further discussion.
